Animals Hiding in Plain Sight (9 Photos)

November 12, 2026

By Vidar

The shape came first

Three rock formations need only a familiar name. Six street artworks get a little help from paint or chalk. In each, an existing shape does part of the work: a hollow becomes a hippo’s mouth, a pipe becomes a trunk, a bollard becomes a frog, and a camera becomes an eye.

There’s a name for seeing an animal in a rock: pareidolia, the brain finding something meaningful in a random image or pattern, as Live Science explains. The three rocks below rely on that instinct alone; the six street artworks put it to work on purpose.

🐢 Turtle Rock — Gorkhi-Terelj National Park, Mongolia 🇲🇳

A raised head and long, ridged back give Turtle Rock its animal outline. The small white yurts below make the size easier to judge. In Mongolian the granite formation is called Melkhii Khad; it stands in Gorkhi-Terelj National Park, northeast of Ulaanbaatar.

💡 Place Fact: Gorkhi-Terelj was established as a national park in 1993 and covers about 1,127 square miles (2,920 km²). Turtle Rock is one of two formations there famous for their look-alike names; the other is the Old Man Reading a Book, also called Praying Lama Rock, according to the park’s Wikipedia entry.

📷 Photo: Dan Nevill / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

🐜 Drainpipe Anteater — By Tom Bob

Here an artist takes over. Tom Bob uses a drainpipe as an anteater’s long snout, then adds a body, a heavy eyelid and a trail of ants. The pipe keeps its original bend.

More: Tom Bob’s Clever Street Art

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🐊 Alligator Drain — By David Zinn

A square drain grate supplies the alligator’s armored back. David Zinn draws the eyes, feet and curling tail around it, leaving the metal grid clearly visible.

💡 Artist Fact: Before the chalk creatures, David Zinn spent about twenty years as a commercial artist, drawing theatrical posters, newsletter comics and store logos. According to the Ann Arbor Observer, he began by drawing on his own driveway in the early 2000s.

More: They Look Alive — Art by David Zinn

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🐦 Camera-Eyed Bird — By Tom Bob

The round camera becomes a large, glossy eye. A blue body, yellow beak and orange foot turn the wall fitting into a bird. The before photograph gives away how little hardware changed.

More: Tom Bob’s Clever Street Art

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🐌 Pipe Snail — By Ernest Zacharevic in Vilnius, Lithuania 🇱🇹

Two capped pipes stand just far enough from the wall to become the snail’s eyes. Ernest Zacharevic adds a low body and a spiral shell between the windows. Gaboras Ileš took the photo.

💡 Artist Fact: Ernest Zacharevic is Lithuanian-born. In 2012 he painted murals for the George Town Festival in Penang, Malaysia, including Children on a Bicycle, which combines paint with real objects that visitors climb on and so join the scene, as the Asia Society notes. The snail plays the same game with two pipes.

More: Street Art by Ernest Zacharevic

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🐘 Elephant with a Pipe Trunk — By Tom Bob

The curved drainpipe provides the trunk. Next to it, a wall grille becomes a wheeled cage, and a painted ramp leads toward the elephant. Two ordinary fixtures now belong to the same scene.

💡 Artist Fact: Tom Bob grew up in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and moved to New York City around the early 1980s to pursue an art career. He came to street art much later: when Boston 25 News profiled him in 2021, he had been making it for about seven years.

More: Tom Bob’s Clever Street Art

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🦆 Duck on a Rock — Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, USA 🇺🇸

The small head and rounded body suggest a bird perched above the canyon. The National Park Service notes that erosion wore away its bill long ago. The name has lasted longer than the beak.

💡 Place Fact: The viewpoint sits at mile marker 246 on Desert View Drive, the 23-mile (37 km) road along the South Rim between Grand Canyon Village and Desert View.

📷 Photo: Don Graham / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).

🦛 Hippo’s Yawn — Hyden, Western Australia, Australia 🇦🇺

The open mouth is already there: a hollow beneath a heavy, rounded overhang. Hippo’s Yawn is near Wave Rock in Hyden. No painted teeth required.

💡 Place Fact: The shallow cave is about 43 feet (13 m) tall at its mouth. A 1.1-mile (1.7 km) loop from the Wave Rock parking lot passes it and takes 30 to 40 minutes, according to Trails WA. That parking lot is about 208 miles (334 km) east of Perth.

📷 Photo: Calistemon / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

🐸 Bollard Frog — By Tom Bob in Kaohsiung, Taiwan 🇹🇼

A mooring bollard already has a frog’s squat, rounded shape. Tom Bob paints it lime green, adds goggle eyes and a pink tongue, then spreads long, round-tipped toes across the quay. It stands on the waterfront of Kaohsiung’s Pier-2 Art Center, as Street Art Utopia’s Tom Bob feature notes. In the before shot, a ship’s rope is still looped around it.

More: Tom Bob’s Clever Street Art

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